Balakhna

The city is located on the right bank of the Volga River, 34 km from Nizhny Novgorod. The city was founded in 1474 under the name of Sol-on-Gorodets. After the Kazan Khan leveled it to the ground in 1536, a wooden fortress was built to protect it from Tatar raids. In the Middle Ages, the city was a significant center of the salt industry, the administrative center of the Balakhna district. Under Ivan the Terrible, the city among others was appointed king to his oprichnina. During the Troubles, the Balakhna voivode supported False Dmitry II and, together with the Arzamas voivode, tried to take Nizhny Novgorod, which remained loyal to the Tsar Shuisky. In response, on December 2, 1608, the Nizhny Novgorod army took Balakhna by storm, forcing residents to kiss the Shuisky cross. In 1610, Balakhna suffered from the Cossacks, many temples were destroyed. Balakhna is the birthplace of Kuzma Minin, the organizer of the Nizhny Novgorod militia of 1611"1612. On the way from Nizhny Novgorod to Yaroslavl, the militia passed through Balakhna, voluntarily collecting funds from residents to organize the militia. In 1714, Balakhna became part of the Nizhny Novgorod province as a county city. In the XVIII-XIX centuries the city was an important center of shipbuilding. In 1925, the Nizhny Novgorod GRES, working on peat, came into operation, in 1928 the first products of the pulp and paper mill and a cardboard factory were issued. Until 1998, the city had stations Balakhna-Sortirovchaya and Balakhna-Passenger of the Balakhnin-Shui narrow gauge railway network. The city is the birthplace of Kuzma Minin, a decision was made to build a tourist complex. The sketch project of the museum and tourist complex "Mininsk Sloboda" should be carried out by the Nizhny Novgorod research enterprise "Ethnos", which became the winner of the competition for choosing an organization to perform a sketch project. The complex is planned to accommodate several wooden buildings of the sample of the XVI - XVII centuries. The largest building will be the Voivodeship Manor. It will consist of a museum of the XVII century, a residential room, a dining room, a lamp, spacious hays, stables and other buildings. On the territory of the tourist complex, there should also be a tavern for two halls of 25 seats, a hotel for 40-50 rooms (900 m2), a boat station for 10-15 boats (150 m2). The buildings of the complex should be made in wood with the use of several types of carvings in the decoration. The cost of the contract will be 474.899 thousand rubles. The total area of the tourist complex is expected to be 72 thousand square meters.